


Ever After

by StormDancer



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Anorexia, Codependency, Everyone Has Issues, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-26
Updated: 2014-05-26
Packaged: 2018-01-26 15:04:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1692677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StormDancer/pseuds/StormDancer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s perfect, really. Harry has Zayn, and through everything, from boarding school to Harry’s first girlfriend to Harry’s first boyfriend to college to everything, Zayn’s never left.   </p>
<p>There's also the small fact of Zayn being in love with him, but they don’t talk about that. It’s the one thing they never talk about.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ever After

**Author's Note:**

> Any of the portrayals/characterizations in the fic are PURELY FICTIONAL and have no bearing on the real life mental states of the actual boys, nor my opinion of their actual mental health. Just because I say it here doesn't mean I believe it outside of this au. On the same note, the characterization of assorted family members is purely fictional and not to be taken as any sort of opinion outside the confines of the fic.
> 
> That being said, I've tried to treat the various issues in this fic as sensitively and accurately as possible; if I got something wrong I apologize. 
> 
> Not mine, blah di blah. Enjoy!

“Zayn?” Harry doesn’t have to say more for Zayn to look up from his bed. his smile starting to bloom, soft and pleased to see Harry as ever. Then it freezes when he catches sight of Harry’s face. Harry leans pitifully as possible against the doorframe, tilts his head so Zayn will catch sight of the tear-stains. The very real tear stains, because he does feel like he’s coming apart again, breaking into tiny pieces. 

Zayn scoots up on the bed, opens his arms, and Harry takes that as the invitation it is. He drops his backpack on the ground by the door, kicks the door shut, and throws himself onto the bed next to Zayn, burrowing into the warmth of him, the familiar, comforting smoky scent, the way his arms come around him and hold him tight like they have for years. He can feel himself being put back together again, bit by bit, just by being here with his best friend, like he has for the past six years. Who needs anyone else? Harry doesn’t. Zayn’s here. He won’t go away. He won’t leave Harry. 

Because he’s the best, and he’s held Harry through enough of these to know how it works, Zayn doesn’t say anything as Harry sobs onto his chest, just pets his hair and hums into his ear and holds him steady. It’s only when Harry’s settled a bit, and he shifts so he’s more lying next to Zayn than on top of him, that Zayn speaks. 

“You and Layla over, then?”

“Yeah.” Harry sniffles, and shifts so that he can lean more comfortably against Zayn while also looking at him and not getting hair in his face, and also so that the book Zayn was reading isn’t digging into his thigh. “She said it wasn’t working.”

Zayn hums thoughtfully. Harry can feel it in his chest, rumbling into Harry’s skin like the familiar, comforting feel of a cat purring. “And?” 

“And that I was too high maintenance for her.”

That sparks a chuckle from Zayn, and an affectionate ruffle of his hair. “You are high maintenance,” he tells Harry, and Harry smiles a bit. He is. He knows it. 

Then the smile dies. “And,” he adds, because this is Zayn, and if there’s anyone he can tell this too, it’s him. “And that she didn’t know how anyone put up with all my clingy shit.” He closes his eyes against that one, nuzzles closer to Zayn. 

“Babe…” Zayn trails off, in that way he has when he’s choosing his words very carefully. It takes him a few seconds, but Harry knows how to wait for it. “You know she was just mad.”

“But it’s true!” It bursts out of Harry. Why does this always happen? He thinks he’s happy, then they leave. Always, always, always. “She’s right. No one ever puts up with me for long.”

Zayn’s hand stills on his hair, then picks up again. When he speaks, his voice is a little hoarse, a little choked, nothing anyone who hadn’t spent six years figuring out how to read every little mood of Zayn’s face would notice. But Harry’s put in his time learning how to read Zayn despite his whole mysterious stoic thing, and he notices. He should probably stop, he guesses. He might be being a bit cruel. But where else is he supposed to go? 

“You’ll find someone,” Zayn says. Harry looks up, because he can’t not when Zayn is talking like that. He’s looking down at Harry and his eyes are shining and bright with emotion and belief and all those things Harry wishes he could just absorb from him, take into himself until he shone with them too. “Someone who will love you forever and always and never leave.” 

Harry puts his head onto Zayn’s chest, where he can feel his heart beating rabbit-quick. “But when?” he moans, and Zayn’s fingers tighten on his hair for a second before letting go. 

\---

Harry’s dad left when he was ten. When he’s in a psychoanalytic mood, he thinks all his emotional issues can be traced to that. His father left him. And then all his mom’s various boyfriends left too, even the ones he liked, usually because they didn’t want to deal with a kid on top of everything, and then even his mom left him, dumping him into a boarding school so she can go back to living on alimony and her boyfriends’ money. 

As that school is where he met Zayn, he can’t quite be entirely heartbroken about it—though he does think that final abandonment was quite formative for him. But his roommate that year was a shy, quiet boy who wasn’t beautiful yet, but who still listened so intently to anything Harry said. And that first night, when Harry was sobbing out his loneliness and abandonment, he had just gotten up and stood at the foot of his bed. Harry had glanced at him, eyes red-rimmed and defensive, and he had just said—and these were almost the first words Harry had ever heard from him—“How can I help?” 

He hadn’t faltered when Harry had moved to make room for him on the bed, had just slid in and wrapped around him and held him that night like he would for so many nights to come. That was the end for them, Harry thinks sometimes, with no little satisfaction. They would never need anyone else after that. Zayn stayed. Zayn held him when he was sad and teased him when he was being too him and helped him through classes and was always, always there, and Harry got Zayn to smile and made him do things he wouldn’t do and made sure he stayed together and that everyone always knew how brilliant his brilliant friend was. 

 

It’s perfect, really. Harry has Zayn, and through everything, from boarding school to Harry’s first girlfriend to Harry’s first boyfriend to college to everything, Zayn’s never left. 

There’s also the small fact of Zayn being in love with him, but they don’t talk about that. It’s the one thing they never talk about. 

\---

Harry chose his favorite coffee shop very carefully. It’s got a lot of overstuffed chairs, plays good music, cute baristas who don’t take Harry’s flirting seriously and who look at Zayn with the appropriate amount of awe, has coffee that stands up to Zayn’s standards and healthy but filling food, has good wifi, and usually has space for them to get a table. All of that’s important, because Harry knew when he chose it that he would be spending a lot of time there, most of it waiting for Zayn. 

Today is no different. He’s been sitting at a table worrying over his Con Law paper for half an hour before Zayn shows up, sliding into the seat across the table from Harry with a grin that’s half apology and half ‘well, what did you expect?’

“Sorry I’m late,” he says, as Harry pushes the coffee and muffin he had gotten for him five minutes ago across the table. Zayn picks the coffee up and takes a long sip. Harry shoves the muffin closer. “Got caught up after class. Louis was in the middle of a story.”

“And you left me all alone here?” Harry pouts, and Zayn laughs and ruffles his hair before he leans down to pull out his own laptop. “You’re an awful, awful friend.”

“Yeah, I’m the worst,” Zayn drawls, flipping his laptop open and adjusting his glasses. “I don’t know why you put up with me.”

“Me either.” Zayn kicks at Harry, and he yelps. “Ow! Zayn!”

“Stop being a brat.”

“Stop being mean.”

“But you make it so easy.”

Harry sticks out his tongue at Zayn, and Zayn laughs, a low giggle that makes eyes shine and his tongue press against his teeth. Harry grins back at him. Making Zayn smile like that is one of his main life goals, after becoming a world famous lawyer. Or maybe before it. He’s always assumed they coexisted,. But he loves that he can make Zayn smile, because Zayn has a tendency to forget how silly and funny he is when Harry doesn’t remind him. 

“Shut up,” he tells him, though, “I was working before you showed up to distract me.”

“Need me to take a look?”

“Not yet. Can you read it when I’m done?”

“’course.” 

They lapse into quiet, the easy quiet Harry’s never known how to have with anyone else, only broken by the sounds of the other café people and the clicking of their laptops. And then, by Zayn’s muffled snort of laughter, loud in their bubble of silence. 

It’s loud enough that Harry looks over, because he was pretty sure Zayn was doing reading for his lit crit class, and he’s tried reading some of that over Zayn’s shoulder and it was actually physically painful. Sure enough, Zayn isn’t looking at it. He is, however, looking at his phone, and giggling into his hand. 

“What’s up?” Harry asks. Zayn doesn’t text much. He’s notorious among all their friends for never even having his phone—half the time people don’t even bother texting or calling him, they just text Harry and expect him to be with Zayn. It usually works. 

“Nothing. Louis just had a follow up to that story.” Zayn giggles again, types out a response, and puts his phone onto the table next to his computer. Like he’s expecting a response. And will reply to it. 

“Louis?” Harry asks. It’s not like Zayn can’t have friends outside of Harry. Harry knows it’s not healthy for them to have everyone in common. He even tries to get Zayn to meet other people, always encourages him to go on dates and everything (because one day Zayn will understand he is the best, most desirable person in the universe, Harry is determined). But he had thought he had at least met all of them, like Zayn meets all of Harry’s friends even if he’s not friends with them himself. Just to make sure. But he hasn’t heard of Louis before. 

“Yeah, he’s a guy in my Shakespeare class.” Zayn shrugs, and not in his ‘it’s a big deal but I’m downplaying it because I forget to assert myself sometimes’ way. In his ‘I really don’t think this is a deal at all’ way, so Harry relaxes. 

“Oh. What was his story?”

Zayn shakes his head. “I can’t tell it half as well as he can. How’s the paper going?” 

“It’s going.” 

“Tell me about it? I can sounding board.”

“Don’t you have your reading?”

That gets him a skeptical look. “Anything to procrastinate that.” 

Harry laughs. “Fine. It’s—”

Zayn’s phone buzzes. He holds up a hand to stop Harry, looks at it, laughs, types out a response, then gestures for Harry to go on. Harry makes a pouty face at him, but starts talking. Zayn is allowed to have other friends, he tells himself, sternly. Other people are allowed to make Zayn laugh. It’s probably best if they do. 

It doesn’t make the lump in his stomach go away. 

\---

“Get her number?” Zayn asks, as Harry sits back down in their booth at the bar and hands Zayn a basket of sweet potato fries. Zayn makes a face, but takes one, then, at Harry’s stern look, another. 

“Of course.” Harry holds out the napkin on which the very attractive brunette at the bar had written her number under a ‘Sarah’ which he’s pretty sure is her real name. “She’s an art student. They’re always wild.” He waggles his eyebrows, and Zayn rolls his eyes before he takes a long drink. He tilts his head back to do it, so the long line of his neck is exposed, and Harry gives it an admiring look before grabbing a fry himself. 

“Gonna go searching for more?” Zayn asks, when he puts the drink down. Harry’s never been quite sure why he does this to himself, always asks about Harry’s love life and conquests and plans, but he does, every time. Harry doesn’t like to think about it. 

Harry shrugs. “Maybe? I don’t know if I want to get into anything right after Layla.”

Another eye roll. 

“What?” Harry demands. He knows that face. That’s his ‘I’m very purposefully keeping quiet’ face.

Zayn takes another fry, but doesn’t eat it, just looks at it in his fingers. “You’re going to get into something right away, and you know it,” he says, suddenly looking up. And there’s no judgment in his gaze, just the steady truth of someone who knows Harry down to the bone. “You always do.”

“I can pretend!” Harry protests, even though Zayn is right, of course. Maybe not Sarah, but he hasn’t been single for more than two weeks since he was sixteen and James O’Neill blew him behind the gym. It’s already been a week and he’s getting antsy, despite having hooked up with a guy in Niall’s frat a few days ago. He’s alone. He can’t stay this way for long. 

“Okay, then, pretend.” Zayn shakes his head, then finishes off his beer. “I’m gonna go for a smoke.” 

“Zayn!” Harry lunges forward, grabs Zayn’s wrist before he can leave. “Are you mad?” He makes his most charming face, the one he knows Zayn can’t resist. Zayn can’t be mad at him. He hates when Zayn is mad at him, even if it’s never lasted more than three hours. Those hours had felt like his whole world was out of line, like he had nowhere safe to go, and it was awful. And that time he had pretty good reason to be mad. 

This time, though, Zayn sighs and shakes his head, but with a smile. “No, Haz. Just need a cigarette.”

“Okay, good.” Harry lets go of his wrist, and sits back. “Fine, leave me alone for something that’ll kill you.”

“Anyone in this bar would be happy to take my place,” Zayn tells him with a chuckle that doesn’t entirely reach his eyes. “I’ll be back.”

“I’ll be waiting!” Harry calls after him, loud enough that people around him turn to look, “My heart will always wait for you!” 

Zayn flips him off as he goes, and Harry laughs in satisfaction before turning his attention back to the fries. 

He’s midway through texting Niall to come meet him because he’s bored when he sees Zayn come back in. Zayn stands on his tiptoes to meet Harry’s eyes, and Harry holds up his empty glass. Zayn nods, and makes his way over to the bar, leans against it. 

The bartender, of course, immediately comes over to him to take his order, because she’s female and Zayn’s Zayn. For the same reason, people shift around him, glance his way under hooded eyes. Harry doesn’t blame them. Zayn’s looking particularly hot today, in dark jeans and combat boots, with a nearly-black denim jacket on that makes his back look like a perfect triangle, all wide shoulders and slim hips, his hair up and back and perfect. Zayn just doesn’t notice, or manages to misinterpret it. Harry’s working on that, on making Zayn overcome years of being isolated and bullied for being smart and different and quiet, but even after six years it’s a work in progress. Harry doesn’t quite get why. He will fight anyone who claims Zayn isn’t the most beautiful thing in existence. Including Zayn. Mainly, it seems, Zayn. 

 

Harry is busy plotting how to get the fit blonde guy who’s eying Zayn from across the bar to give Zayn his number when he’s preempted. Or, sort of, because suddenly a guy with long brown hair comes over and just—drapes himself over Zayn, slings a hand around him and hooks his chin over his shoulder. Harry tenses, ready to launch himself over there if this is some harassment thing—but Zayn doesn’t do any of the things he does when he’s uncomfortable, just laughs and says something, and the other guy says something back. He looks utterly comfortable. 

Except Zayn isn’t comfortable. Zayn is touchy with people he loves, with his family and Harry, but not with people he’s just met. Harry’s the one who’ll hug people as greeting, who’s perfectly willing to give out kisses like money. Zayn only accepts public cuddles from Harry or his sisters. 

And yet he doesn’t dislodge the other guy, not even when he pays for his and Harry’s drink. They only finally disengage when Zayn turns around to come back to the table, and the other guy comes with him too. 

It’s not bad, per se—Harry’s just confused. Zayn’s acting weird. He could be drugged. Or something. But Harry is willing to give the other guy the benefit of the doubt, because Zayn should get laid more. So he arranges his face into a welcoming smile and not like he’s been staring at them. 

“Hey, Haz,” Zayn says as he gets back to the table. He slides back into his side of the booth, and the other guy follows him in. “This is Louis. Louis, Harry.” 

“Hey.” Louis nods, friendly enough. He’s got a sharp face, with eyes of a bright enough blue that Harry notices it from here and a punk rock sort of style that Harry only wishes he could pull off. 

“Hey,” Harry says back. Then, remembering, “Oh, Louis from the Shakespeare class?”

“Yeah,” Zayn agrees, taking the last of the fries. “That Louis.”

“The _best_ Louis,” Louis says. 

Zayn wrinkles his nose. “That’s a broad claim. There’re probably a lot of Louis’s.” 

“Nope, you won’t find one better than me.” Louis reaches out to poke at Zayn’s shoulder. Zayn swats at his hand, and because he’s Zayn and magical, catches it and puts it back on Louis’s shoulder. 

“Not in any multiverse?” Zayn asks, in his teasing voice. It gives Louis pause, even if Harry’s not entirely sure what a multiverse is. He thinks it’s a thing from one of Zayn’s comics. 

“Well, maybe another version of me is more awesome. Like the one who’s Iron Man. But other than that, no.” Louis smirks at Zayn, and tugs his hand away. “Anyway. I’m Louis from Shakespeare class,” he tells Harry, who is definitely not pouting about being left out of a conversation. It’s just weird. Usually it’s him and Zayn in their own world. “You’re Harry from…”

Harry blinks. “Just Zayn’s Harry,” is all he can say. He’s not from anywhere. He’s from always. 

“Really?” Louis drags the word out skeptically, teasingly. 

“He’s my best friend since we were fifteen,” Zayn jumps in, with the patience of someone who’s had to make that correction a lot, and nudges Louis with his shoulder. “So shut up.” 

“Never.” Louis grins. “Though I’ve got to go. I was here to meet some mates, before Zed here distracted me.” He pokes at Zayn again, and Zayn rolls his eyes. 

“Nice to meet you,” Harry says, politely, and Louis nods back. 

“You too. Zayn, see you tomorrow?”

“Yeah, ‘course. When?”

“Noon?”

“He won’t be awake by then,” Harry inserts. He’s not entirely sure why he needs to, but he does. He knows Zayn. He’s known him for forever. 

Louis doesn’t even react, though, although Zayn makes a face at Harry. “Three, then?”

“Sure,” Zayn nods. “Later, man.” 

“Later.” Louis gives them another smirky smile, then leaves, heading back to the bar. 

Both Zayn and Harry watch him go for a moment. He’s attractive enough, Harry guesses. More curvy than lean, though he’s got a soccer player’s muscles and a really nice ass. 

“No sleeping with him.” A bit of napkin thrown at his face makes Harry look over. 

“What?”

“No sleeping with Louis,” Zayn says, sternly. But there’s a bit of that look in his eyes, the one he gets when he’s pretending like he’s not in love with Harry. “Really, Haz. Don’t.”

“I wouldn’t!” Harry protests. “He’s all yours. I don’t poach.”

“Yes you do. And it’s not like that.” Zayn sighs, and rubs at his collarbone, a nervous gesture that Harry’s pretty sure he has no idea makes everyone want to just bite at his collarbones. 

“I wouldn’t poach from you,” Harry corrects himself. That is true. And it gets Zayn to smile, and pet at Harry’s hair. 

“You’re just utterly amoral, aren’t you?” he teases, which makes Harry protest, and then everything’s back to normal, just the two of them teasing and shooting the shit until they split up to leave, Harry snagging Sarah from her friends with a come hither look and a proud smirk at Zayn, and Zayn with one of his emotion-filled looks and then turning to go back to his dorm. 

\---

But it’s not back to normal. Because Harry keeps on hearing about Louis. Zayn drops him into conversation like Harry imagines he does with Harry when he’s not around, ‘Harry says’ and ‘Harry told the funniest story’ and stuff like that. He meets up with him to study. He grabs lunch with him after class, even though he and Harry usually eat all their meals together. Zayn disappears for a full day once, and comes back giggling and covered in feathers and refuses to say why, and then the next day everyone’s talking about how some people covered the dean’s office in down and Zayn grins every time he hears about it. 

It’s not even that Harry dislikes Louis, because he doesn’t. He thinks he’s quite funny, and fun, and a good guy even if he can be mean. But so can Zayn, so Harry doesn’t really judge on that. He wishes he could dislike him, because then he’d have a reason for feeling so edgy all the time. If he hated him, he could just tell Zayn that and then Zayn would ditch Louis and come back to Harry. But he doesn’t. Hate him, or say anything.

“Are you coming out with me tonight?” Harry asks Zayn, a month after he first meets Louis. When Zayn doesn’t respond at first, Harry wraps a hand around the ankle resting in his lap and shakes. That gets Zayn to look up from the _Les Mis_ he’s been immersed in for the past hour while Harry tried his best to get through Psych reading and shake his head. 

“Nah.”

“What?” Harry hadn’t—well, it had been a rhetorical question. They always go out together on Saturdays. They’ve done that for two years. 

Zayn shrugs. “Lou and I are gonna stay in and watch The Avengers.” 

“Okay…” It’s not like they can’t do different things. Harry has plenty of people he can call to go out with him, if Zayn would rather have a night in. It’s fine. “Have fun.”

“You can watch with us, if you want,” Zayn offers, offhand. Great. So Harry can watch a movie he doesn’t care about while Zayn and Louis are all giggly and excited together. What more could he want out of life? 

“No, thanks.” Harry pushes Zayn’s feet out of his lap so he can get up. It must have been rougher than he meant to, because Zayn immediately curls his feet under him and gives him a narrow-eyed look. 

“You okay?”

“Fine.”

“Harry.” 

What is he supposed to say? You can’t spend time with anyone but me? I need you to come out with me? He can’t lie, because he’s actually pretty incapable of lying to Zayn, but he doesn’t…

“It’s fine, Zayner, don’t worry,” he says. Zayn is allowed to have other friends. He’ll always come back to Harry. It’s fine. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” 

“Have fun,” Zayn agrees, and goes back to his book. Harry takes a moment to look at him there, curled up on his bed with the same navy bedding he’s had since they were fifteen and all his books around him, in his sweats and a t-shirt. He looks gorgeous, as always. He looks like home. 

\---

Harry tries to have fun, he does. He only texts Zayn three things, all silly things Harry thinks or sees that will make him laugh. He gets kind of drunk and makes out with a dark-haired guy with subpar eyelashes and cheekbones, but when the guy murmurs a suggestion to go back to his in his ear, Harry says no. He can’t shake this feeling. It’s like when Zayn was mad at him, except Zayn isn’t mad at him, he’s just not here. 

So he goes home. Which means back to Zayn’s, because they must have finished the movie by now and he can curl up with Zayn and reassure himself that Zayn’s still there, solid and warm against him. 

The door is closed and locked, which just means Zayn’s decided not to leave again tonight, so Harry unlocks it with the key he definitely doesn’t have according to the administration, and slips in. After three years of rooming together, he knows how to move so that Zayn won’t wake up, knows the exact level of noise he can make, so he doesn’t worry about closing the door quietly or turning on the light. 

But, “Whazzat?” a voice comes from the bed, and Harry freezes. It’s not Zayn. He knows Zayn’s just woken up sleepy voice, the adorable and more than a little sexy hoarseness of it, and that’s not it. It’s higher and a different accent and he hardly wants to look but he does, and Louis is blinking at him from Zayn’s bed, his eyes narrowed against the light. “Harry?”

He’s wearing a shirt, is Harry’s first thought. He’s clothed. And so is Zayn, from where he’s curled on his side how he normally sleeps. But they’re still so close together, their foreheads touching and arms intertwined and Harry’s breath catches. 

“Sorry,” he says immediately. “Sorry, I didn’t know you were staying over. I’ll go.” 

He backs out of the room before Louis can say anything else, closes the door firmly behind him, then runs all the way back to his room, his feet clomping loudly as his heart is beating. He throws himself down on his bed without a thought for the noise, because he has a single now and he can’t live with Zayn, and if they had only been allowed to live together this would all have been okay but they’re juniors now and juniors can have singles and Harry had known how much Zayn liked his space and had been ready to try not living with Zayn’s mess and had suggested they try it. Stupid, stupid. If they had been living together like they were supposed to Harry could have kicked Louis out. Or said something. Or done something so they weren’t twined together like he was supposed to be with Zayn. 

Harry’s bed feels very empty, very lonely, and he shivers with it even as he pulls the blankets over him. He needs Zayn. He needs Zayn to be here, to be with him and hold him as he falls apart, but Zayn is curled up with Louis instead. 

He has to fight back. He’s never fought back from the essential truth that people leave him before, but he can’t not this time. He doesn’t know how to live without Zayn. He needs to keep him from leaving. He has to. 

Harry falls asleep with his arms wrapped tightly around himself. 

\---

When he wakes up, Harry goes back to Zayn’s. He doesn’t actually expect him to be awake, but maybe Louis will have left, and he can slip into his place. 

But Louis’s still there when he comes in, both of them still asleep just like he left them, and Harry wants to scream a little bit. Instead, he walks over to the bed. Zayn’s just so pretty asleep. He doesn’t know what Louis’s deal is, why they are still clothed and everything. Harry really can’t understand why anyone would not want to sleep with Zayn. Maybe Louis is playing some sort of long game to seduce Zayn away from him. Or maybe, Harry can admit, Louis is just wooing Zayn or something, which is absolutely what Zayn deserves. Just not—not to be wooed away from Harry. That can’t happen. Harry would fall apart if that happened, and Zayn would stop smiling and turn all introverted again. He won’t let that happen. 

So he runs a finger over the sharp line of Zayn’s cheekbone, then shakes him with just enough force to wake him up. “Zaynie,” he whines, “Come get brunch with me.” 

“Go ‘way, Haz.” 

“But Zaynie…”

“Not awake.”

“Come on, I’ll buy you an omelette.” 

“Go ‘way.”

“And all the coffee.” 

Zayn’s blinking by this point, because really the way to get him to wake up is to keep him talking until he forces himself up. His eyelashes brush against his sleep-flushed cheeks, and despite his morning grumpiness there’s a bright smile in them when he sees Harry. Hah, Harry thinks triumphantly, he wins. Zayn still loves him best and always. 

“All the coffee?” he repeats. His voice is sleepy-hoarse, rough like he’s just smoked a pack or is all fucked out. Or, not quite. Harry knows how just fucked Zayn sounds, the loose, lazy way his voice wraps around syllables, so sensual it sends shivers down Harry’s spine. Harry’s jerked off to the imagined sound of that voice in his ear before, purring encouragement and dirty things and promises. 

“Yes, all the coffee,” Harry agrees. “Come on.”

“Fine.” Zayn yawns. “Let me just wake up Louis.” 

He does this, it seems, by kicking him, because Louis wakes up swearing. “Fuck, Zayn!”

“Harry’s buying me breakfast, come on.” 

“So can I go back to sleep?”

“Come get breakfast with us, babe,” Zayn coaxes. Harry tries his best not to glare. No. He wants him and Zayn breakfast. Not him and Zayn and Louis to mess things up. 

“Fine.” Louis reaches out casually to twist Zayn’s nipples, and Zayn yelps and rolls on top of Louis to hold him down. It takes a bit of scuffling, but Zayn ends up on top, straddling Louis’s hips, pinning down his arms. He’s grinning when it’s over, his huge, playful grin, and Harry’s heart—it just dies. Someone else put that smile on Zayn’s face. He’s glad of that, he guesses, because he wants Zayn to smile all the time, but if someone else can make Zayn smile what other use is he? What can he do? Zayn doesn’t need him. 

But Zayn loves him. Zayn is in love with him. 

Except he’s also grinning down at Louis, and Louis’s smirking back up at him, and Harry doesn’t think he’s imagining the way Zayn’s eyes flick down to Louis’s lips. 

Harry clears his throat pointedly. “Breakfast?” he asks, loudly. 

“Right. Off of me, please, Zaynie?” Louis asks, and that’s his nickname for Zayn too. Zayn gets off Louis then offers him a hand to pull him up. Harry can’t tell if their hands linger on each other for longer than friends should, or if Louis looks when Zayn pulls off his t-shirt to change to go out. Or if it means anything if he does, because it’s Zayn, and everyone should look. Harry does. 

But he makes sure to stay close to Zayn as they wlak to breakfast so he and Louis don’t have a chance to hold hands or anything, then he slides in next to Zayn in the booth of the diner, leaning a head against his shoulder. Zayn automatically wraps a hand around him, pulls him close. 

“Hey babe,” he says with a laugh that’s a bit shaky, Harry thinks. Hopes, as he nuzzles into Zayn’s neck. “How was your night?”

“Fine. Would have been better if you were there.” He’s only telling the truth. And because Zayn’s skin is right there, and smells like him and home, he licks it, drawing a line up Zayn’s neck. Zayn shivers beneath him. 

“Well, we had a fun night,” Louis interrupts. Harry thinks about glaring at him, but that’s not the point. The point is he’s not important. Not like Harry is. Is he going to make sure Zayn eats and actually gets fresh air and doesn’t hide and talks about his feelings? Harry doesn’t think so. “How many movies did we watch?”

“How many movies did you watch,” Zayn corrects him, laughing. “I fell asleep during Iron Man.” 

“Weak.”

Harry rubs his nose into Zayn’s skin again. “Not weak,” he says, because Zayn still takes those sorts of things to heart too much, even if he’s a lot better now then he was in high school. 

Zayn’s hand strokes over Harry’s head again in thanks. “I’ve memorized it, I don’t need to watch it to appreciate it,” he retorts, and Louis, to give him credit, laughs. Harry really wishes he could hate him. 

“Hey, move, babe,” Zayn says, and Harry looks at him ready to be sad and pout, but Zayn just laughs. “I’ve got to piss,” he says, and wrinkles his nose. 

“TMI.” But he does let go of Zayn and let him out of the booth. 

Which, unfortunately, leaves him alone with Louis. It shouldn’t be awkward. It’s not even the first time they’ve been alone together. But Harry has been trying really hard to dislike Louis for at least 24 hours, and that makes it hard not to be awkward. 

It doesn’t help that Louis only waits until Zayn’s out of earshot before he looks straight at Harry and says, “We didn’t sleep together.”

“What?” Harry splutters. But Louis doesn’t hesitate. 

“Zayn and I. We didn’t have sex. We did sleep together, obviously, but we didn’t fuck.” 

Harry’s not sure if the confirmation makes it better or worse. He thinks it makes it worse. He’s dealt with Zayn sleeping with other people before. It’s not great, but it happens, and it should happen because everyone should want to sleep with Zayn all the time. This is worse. 

“Okay…” is all he says, though. Because he isn’t entirely sure why Louis is telling him this. 

“Just, because you’ve been glaring at me all morning, and I thought it might be because you were being all protective best friend on me,” Louis explains with a shrug. “That gets old, so I thought I’d clarify.” 

“Oh. Thanks.” It’s wrong, wrong wrong wrong, but it’s better than Louis realizing Harry’s been glaring because he’s stealing his best friend, so he can go with it. 

Luckily, that’s when they get interrupted by a waitress. Louis tries to shoo her away so they can wait until Zayn gets back, but Harry just orders for him. He’s paid enough attention to what Zayn likes and what he should eat over the past four years. Louis gives Harry a bit of an odd look for that, but Harry just shrugs. This is why he’s best for Zayn. 

When Zayn gets back, Harry tells him he ordered for him and ignores Zayn’s fondly irritated look to cuddle up close to him again. This time he slides an arm around his waist and, because he can, because he thinks of the way Zayn had looked at Louis this morning, he lets his fingers slip under the edge of Zayn’s t-shirt so they rest against the skin of his hip, right where the inked heart is. Zayn goes tense for a second, but then he relaxes again. And if sometimes during the conversation, when Zayn’s talking to Louis about things Harry doesn’t know or care about, Harry will circle his fingers a little, just to feel him squirm, well. At least Zayn’s remembering he’s there. 

\---

It doesn’t help. Zayn still goes out with Louis and stays in with Louis and does silly things with Louis and giggles into Louis’s neck and hugs Louis and cuddles with Louis. Not that he doesn’t do all those things with Harry too, because he does. They still eat most meals together and study together and talk and laugh and go out and all those things they used to do, but not as much. Or Harry feels like it’s not as much, because sometimes during those times Zayn will be texting Louis too, or Louis will come with them, or something. And then he feels guilty for it because Zayn having friends is good, but Zayn having better friends than him isn’t, especially when Zayn’s starting to look at Louis a bit like he looked at Harry before he was really in love with him, like he was this incomprehensible but interesting thing he wants to figure out. If Zayn falls in love with Louis too, Harry will lose him, he knows it. And Louis isn’t helping with all the touching him and Zayn do. 

And Harry fights back, the only way he knows. He can’t lose Zayn. And clearly just doing what they normally do isn’t working. 

So he stoops lower. He knows it’s not the best, not the nicest, but he doesn’t really care if it means he can keep Zayn. He lets his hands wander whenever they’re close together. Licks or kisses or bites whatever skin of Zayn’s is near. Does some of those things he’s been wondering about since they were seventeen and he first realized his best friend wasn’t just brilliant, but was beautiful too. 

It works, is the thing. It works because no matter whom Zayn is talking to if Harry comes up behind him and pulls him into him, he’ll pay attention to what he says in his ear. If Harry runs his hand down Zayn’s spine, he’ll shiver and look right at him. Once, Harry put his hand around the nape of Zayn’s neck, with his thumb resting on his pulse, to whisper something to him, and Zayn had just melted into him, for all he immediately caught himself and straightened and pulled away. 

Harry thinks about that moment as they sit on Harry’s bed, Zayn’s feet tucked under Harry’s leg as usual, because his feet get cold and Harry runs hot. Zayn’s got Harry’s laptop open on his lap as he reads over Harry’s paper, and his glasses on, and he’s chewing on his lower lip as he reads, and Harry thinks about how Zayn had gone soft and pliant against him, how it had felt like he would have done anything Harry would have asked. 

“Hey Zayn?” Harry asks, quietly. Zayn makes the humming noise he does when he’s paying attention but doesn’t want to look away from what he’s doing. “Want to watch a movie tonight?”

“Yeah, sure. But nothing with subtitles. Or rom-coms,” Zayn replies absently. His nose wrinkles, then smooths out as he types something. 

“No superheroes, then,” Harry retorts, and smiles down at his phone as he texts a ‘no’ to Niall asking him if he’s coming to his party tonight. As much as he loves going out, loves talking to people and meeting people and knowing people want him, he needs his nights with Zayn too, where he can just be calm and easy. 

“Pineapple Express it is,” Zayn agrees, and lifts his head up to grin at Harry. 

They lapse back into silence. Eventually, Zayn hands Harry his computer back, and Harry starts going through Zayn’s edits as Zayn reads for his Shakespeare class. Harry is just considering if he can convince Zayn to order in for dinner when Zayn pulls out his phone and presses his lips together in his considering face. 

“Hey, how attached are you to the movie?” he asks, and Harry can actually feel his face fall. “Because Louis’s got this thing—”

“Is it an important thing?” Harry is trying to be mature. He can do it. 

Zayn pokes at his phone a bit more, then shakes his head. “Not really, but we can always watch a movie, so if you aren’t too—”

“Do you want to?” Harry blurts out, and no, that was not what he wanted to ask. He didn’t want to ask that because he doesn’t want to know the answer, doesn’t want to hear Zayn say yes and then leave him behind. 

Zayn sighs. “Well, I’ve seen Pineapple Express a thousand times, and there’s this concert…”

“We haven’t had a night in for ages,” Harry whines, and gives his most charming smile. “I’ll make it worth your while…”

Zayn grins, tongue pushing against his teeth. “That better mean you’re giving me a shoulder rub,” he retorts, and types one more thing on his phone before dropping it back on the bed. 

“Sure,” Harry agrees. Anything. “Now, Chinese okay?”

Zayn makes a face. “I’m not that hungry.” He pauses, must see Harry’s face, and huffs out a breath. “I had a big lunch.”

“What’d you have?” It’s not been so long that Harry can’t remember Zayn lying about things like this. 

“One of those pizza slices from the deli, then a bag of chips from Niall, and there were snacks in my Lit class,” Zayn reels off, rolling his eyes. But he also remembers everything, Harry notices. He always does. 

But it is enough, so Harry nods. “Fine. Want me to microwave anything?” 

“Nah.” So Harry makes himself a hotpocket and throws in some mozzarella sticks for Zayn as Zayn pulls up the movie on his laptop, then settles down next to him on his bed to watch. 

It’s basically perfect, them making all their old jokes and their feet tangled together and Zayn’s laughter rumbling through them both, but Harry can’t keep their conversation out of his mind. Zayn had wanted to leave. Zayn would have left, if Harry hadn’t asked him to stay. That’s how it starts. Zayn wanting to leave him. 

He picks it over, turns it over and over and over in his brain, but there it is. He needs to give Zayn a better reason to stay. He glances over. Looks at Zayn watching the movie, his eyes crinkling at the corners, the way the collar of his shirt sags so that the wings on his chest peek out. 

A better reason. He can do that. He’d be happy to do that. 

He waits until the movie is over, until the credits roll and Zayn reaches out to shut tap the space key. 

“’nother movie?” Zayn yawns. He really is shit at staying awake during movies. 

Harry shakes his head. “Nah. You wanted your payment, right?”

Zayn snorts. “You actually gonna give me a shoulder rub?

“Sorta.” Harry unwinds himself from Zayn and gets off the bed. “Take your shirt off and lie down.”

Zayn—freezes. “What?”

“Back massage.” Harry tsks his tongue, but he’s working hard not to grin. He shoves Zayn’s shoulder, pushes him down. “Come on, want your payment or not?”

Zayn strips off his shirt slowly, not like he’s putting on a show but like he’s utterly confused by what’s going on, then does as Harry asked and lies on the bed, his fingers interlaced beneath his forehead. 

Harry spares a moment just to look. Because he can, because Zayn is a beautiful thing to look at, all that smooth skin with lean muscles beneath it, untouched except for the fern on his neck and the tiger inching over his shoulder. Not that Harry doesn’t like the ink decorating his front, because he does, but he likes this too, this long unimpeded line of spine and skin. 

Zayn’s hips shift uncomfortably, and Harry shakes himself out of his daze. He knows this is hard for Zayn, this moment when he knows someone is looking at him but he can’t see their reaction, probably especially when it’s Harry. So Harry runs a hand through his hair to settle it, glances at himself in the mirror to make sure he’s presentable—well, close enough, he doesn’t think Zayn will care—and then swings a leg over Zayn’s hips so he’s resting on his thighs. 

With all his skin bare, Harry can see Zayn’s muscles bunch up, which he kind of expected but won’t do at all. He leans over, puts a hand next to Zayn’s head so he can bend down and say into Zayn’s ear, “Don’t worry. Just leverage.” His necklaces are resting against Zayn’s skin, so he waves a little back and forth so Zayn can feel them drag. 

“Leverage.” Zayn swallows. “Right.” 

That done, Harry sits back on his heels. He’s dreamed of this moment, literally. Well, not this exact moment. But one like it, where Zayn’s laid out in front of him and he can touch and touch and touch. He hardly knows where to start. 

Zayn fidgets again beneath him. He needs to do something before Zayn starts freaking out, right. So he starts like it is a massage, and digs the heels of his hands into the muscles right below Zayn’s shoulder, dragging down. Not hard enough to hurt, even though he knows massages should, but enough that he probably is working out some kinks. Zayn’s skin is hot, hotter than he expected, even though he’s touched it a thousand times, and even though lines of goosebumps follow his hands as he traces them up and down Zayn’s back. Shorter strokes at first, just keeping on his upper back, but then he moves lower, until his fingers are finishing just above Zayn’s jeans. He can hear Zayn’s breathing quicken, and so he lets his hand go just a bit lower, dipping beneath the edge just enough for Zayn to feel that’s doing it. 

“ _Harry_.” Zayn’s voice is strangled, not just-fucked rough but a hint of desperate. 

Because Harry’s a tease, both from design and personality, he immediately brings his hands back up to Zayn’s shoulders. “What?” 

Zayn twists his head so he can sort of look at Harry, sidelong at least. “Harry,” he repeats, pained. Harry grins, and moves up to Zayn’s neck, digging into the knots there, pressing his thumb against the pressure point. 

Zayn lets out a low, choked moan that Harry’s never heard from him before. It’s so delightful Harry has to hear it again, so he moves his hand to support him and replaces his thumb with his mouth, sucking at the pressure point as Zayn hips jerk beneath his. 

“Fuck, fuck, Harry.” It’s exactly what Harry wants to hear, want to hear Zayn panting his name, focused on him and only him, so he scrapes his teeth over the bruise he’s already sucked and Zayn’s whole body shudders. But then, “Harry, stop.”

He does, immediately, sitting back up. “What?” he asks again, for real this time. Zayn wants this. He knows Zayn wants this. And so does he. He wants this because it’ll keep Zayn with him, and because Zayn’s his and he’s Zayn’s in every other way so why not this? 

It takes a second for Zayn to seem to remember how to move, then he lifts himself up with one hand so his back is one long curve and he’s looking at Harry over his shoulder. “Harry, what are you doing?” 

“What does it look like I’m doing?” 

Zayn’s eyes are very wide and very dark, and there’s something almost young about his look. “You don’t want this.”

“Sure I do.”

“No, you don’t,” Zayn repeats. It sounds like he’s reciting lessons. “You don’t want me. I know that. You don’t have to pretend.” 

Harry knows that look. Knows the look he gets when he stops believing in himself, when he starts thinking of himself in all the wrong ways, and that was the one thing had never, ever, ever wanted to do to Zayn. “No.” He says it as firmly as he knows how. “Zayn, you’re beautiful, of course I want you.” 

“You _don’t_ ,” Zayn protests. “You don’t have to do this out of guilt, or to make sure I don’t relapse or whatever, Harry—”

“Need me to prove it?” Harry cuts him off. He can give Zayn what he wants. He will give Zayn everything he wants, and then Zayn will never need to go elsewhere. 

“How?” Zayn’s eyelashes flutter over his cheeks. 

“Lie back down.” When Zayn hesitates, Harry makes a face and pokes him in the cheek. “Come on, Zaynie, would I ever lead you wrong? Lie down.”

“Yes, you would,” Zayn mutters, but Harry knows he’s smiling again, so mission accomplished. Also, because he does lie back down, though with his head turned so he can keep an eye on Harry. 

Harry is happy to have an eye on him. He runs one hand over the back of Zayn’s neck, since that apparently does it for him, then bites at the base of Zayn’s neck, right over the fern. “God,” he breathes out appreciatively. “I’ve wanted to do that since you got it.” Because that’s true, he runs his teeth over it again, then soothes the roughness with a kiss. That feels like a good idea, so he keeps kissing down Zayn’s spine, over each vertebrae, until he reaches denim. 

“How are you so fucking hot?” he asks, rhetorically, into the base of Zayn’s spine. Zayn makes one of those noises, those disagreeing noises Harry hates more than anything in the world, so Harry rocks his hips forward so Zayn can feel just how hot Harry thinks him. “You’re beautiful,” he says, “Shit, you are.”

Another one of those noises. Harry had not anticipated this. Hadn’t thought maybe Zayn needed this as much as he did, needed Harry to tell him he was beautiful in all the ways he could. As Harry does think that, he’s perfectly happy to. Who has Zayn been sleeping with, that they haven’t told him? He needs to talk to whoever sleeps with Zayn next, needs to give them precise instructions on where to touch him and what to tell him and how to take care of him. 

“Flip over, babe,” Harry says, as he starts cataloging all the very detailed instructions he will tell this hypothetical future lover. 

“Can’t.”

“Zayn, I’ve seen you with your shirt off before. You don’t have to hide, not from me.”

A snort. “You’re kind of pinning me down.” 

Oh. Right. Harry doesn’t much want to move, but he supposes he can at least lift himself up so Zayn can twist beneath him, until he’s on his back and Harry can settle back on all fours again to look at him. His cheeks are red, his chest heaving, and there’s a distinct bulge in his jeans, but he’s not smiling either, and that’s not okay. 

“You’re beautiful from here, too,” Harry informs him, and Zayn bites at his lip. But he is. Harry reaches out, traces each one of his ribs, barely visible any more, then drags his finger up Zayn’s sternum, over the heart at the center, then up to flick at his nose. Zayn’s look of surprise and laughter is everything Harry ever wanted. 

“There.” Now Harry can go on. Zayn needs to think back on this as perfect, and the laughter is always part of it. 

But now that he’s here, there’s almost too much choice. The way Zayn’s looking at him, Harry’s pretty sure he’s going to be the one who’s making decisions—Zayn, he thinks, still barely believes Harry is here, he won’t ask for anything. But there’s so much.

He wants to kiss all of Zayn’s tattoos. Wants to see where else can make Zayn go boneless like that. Wants to see what will make Zayn groan again and what will make him do that breathy moan he gets when he’s jerking himself off, that Harry certainly has never heard when they share a room because he is most certainly always asleep and not straining his ears to hear even a little.

“Harry?” Zayn asks, quietly. Less like he’s asking for anything, and more like he’s expecting Harry not to want to come back. 

Right, first thing’s first. Harry crawls up over Zayn and kisses him, kisses him like that alone can convince him to stay. He puts all that desperation and want and need and plead into the kiss, so it isn’t sweet. He thinks he could do sweet with Zayn, kind of wants to, but not now, not right away. Now he needs the desperate heat as he grinds his hips into Zayn’s even as his tongue thrusts in and out of his mouth, and Zayn bites right back even as his fists clench in the sheets and his hips rise up to meet Harry’s. Harry moans into Zayn’s mouth, and that gets a smile out of Zayn too, which means Harry has to kiss him again, a little softer this time, but no less urgent. 

This time it’s Zayn who’s making noises into Harry’s mouth, and Harry breaks the kiss to trail his lips back down Zayn’s neck, then down his chest. 

“Don’t—”

“I’ll do what I want, stop,” Harry orders, and because he knows what Zayn’s talking about he plants careful kisses up and down Zayn’s stomach, where there were bits of pudge when he first knew him that are now smooth lines of muscle. Then he moves back up, scrapes his teeth over Zayn’s nipple. Zayn’s hips buck, and Harry grins and does it again, then moves to the other one. He will take Zayn apart, he decides. He will take him apart so there’s never any reason to go anywhere else for anything. 

“Harry.” Harry looks up. From the way Zayn says his name, the way he’s chewing on his lip like he’s biting in all sorts of screams, he’s pretty sure Zayn’s all right with this plan. 

“You can be loud,” Harry says, tries to purr. “Want to hear you, babe. Hear how much you want me.”

“Fuck, Harry,” Zayn repeats, louder, and Harry shakes his head as he circles Zayn’s nipple with a finger. 

“Not yet.” 

Zayn’s head tilts back at that, all that neck that Harry’s sort of tasted but not really, not with intent. He does now, examining the bruise he had made earlier from this angle. Zayn’s lets out another one of those moans, and Harry shoves one hand between them to get a hold of Zayn’s belt. He does his best to undo it while still kissing Zayn, and he’s good enough that by the time Zayn’s panting and Harry has to come up for breath, he can go back down and tap at Zayn’s hips for him to lift them. 

He does, without a word, and Harry pulls the jeans off. He can see Zayn making a very conscious effort not to flinch as more of him is revealed. 

“You don’t—fucking hell.”

Harry, not wanting to hear any of that, had cut him off by leaning down to breath over the wet spot growing on his boxers. “Come on, these too,” he says, and when Zayn doesn’t move he just breathes out and pulls them down himself, until Zayn’s all bare in front of him. It’s the best thing he’s ever seen. Why have they not been doing this earlier? 

Zayn’s hard already—Harry’s own erection is pressing painfully against his jeans, but he needs to make this last—so Harry doesn’t hesitate in swallowing him down. Zayn’s groan is probably loud enough for everyone in the dorm to hear, but Harry doesn’t really give any fucks, he needs to make him do that again, preferably around his name. So he puts a hand on Zayn’s hips to keep him anchored and licks back up the side, teasing with tongue and lips until Zayn’s a litany of ‘Harry Harry Harry’ and he’s just on the verge of coming. 

But anyone can give a good blow job. Harry pulls off with a pop, and Zayn’s discontented mumble makes him smile. “Zayn,” he asks though, in all seriousness. He wants—but he’s not going to do anything Zayn doesn’t want, and he’s not entirely sure what that is. He spends half a second trying to think of some better way to phrase it, but this is Zayn. He doesn’t need it to be pretty. “Can I fuck you? Please?”

Zayn’s eyes had been screwed shut, but he opens one. “Only if you say pretty please.” His voice is rough, and it sends enough shivers through Harry that Harry’s scrambling towards the night stand to get supplies when Zayn adds, “And—”

“And what?” Harry will do anything. Anything at all. 

“And…” Zayn’s oddly tentative, for the position they’re in. Shy, like he hasn’t been with Harry for years. “And you’re wearing a lot of clothes, still.” 

That’s an easy one, and Harry grins back at Zayn. “That I can fix,” he agrees, and throws off his shirt as he rummages in the drawer for lube and condoms. It probably takes more time doing both at once then it would just to do one, but Harry can’t really bring himself to care, and they both get done eventually. He drops the supplies onto the bed then kicks off his own jeans and underwear, with a hiss as the air hits his cock. There’s a hiss from Zayn too, and Harry glances over to see Zayn staring not a little. 

“Like what you see?” Harry asks, cheeky.

Zayn rolls his eyes. “Come back here?”

Harry’s only too happy to oblige. When he kisses Zayn this time it’s even better, because it’s all skin to skin and there’s not a part of Zayn Harry can’t feel. 

It’s Zayn who breaks the kiss this time, pulls back and licks kiss-stained lips. “How do you want me?” 

Harry’s whole world resets on those words. When he can think again, “How do you want to be?”

“However you want,” Zayn says, steadily. Harry should encourage him to make a decision, he knows. Should make him have the confidence to choose. But later. Now Harry has so many ideas and…

“You done this lately?” 

Zayn shakes his head, even though Harry knew that. Or thought he did. Who knew what Zayn and Louis got up to. 

It’s the thought of that that makes him decide. “Hands and knees, then,” he announces, and gets off Zayn so Zayn can roll over and shift back. 

“Fuck,” Harry breathes. He just—he hadn’t know he wanted this this much until right now, until he actually sees Zayn, beautiful, brilliant, loving Zayn, quivering and bare for him, waiting for Harry to touch. 

So he does, slicks up his fingers then trails them from Zayn’s balls to his hole, opens him up as slowly and painlessly as Harry knows how. He thinks he does pretty well, because Zayn’s muttering swear words into his hands, swear words and Harry’s name and ‘please please please’. 

Harry can oblige. Harry wants nothing more than to oblige, so he rolls on a condom and more lube and grabs onto Zayn’s hips. His hands wrap around them, big enough that he feels like he’s engulfing Zayn, like he can hold on forever, keep Zayn with him forever. At the least he holds them steady as he slides in, stopping at Zayn’s sharp intake of breath then going more when Zayn’s shoulder relax again. It’s in stops and starts that he eases in, until he’s bottomed out and he waits for Zayn to get used to it. 

“You okay?”

Zayn’s head bobs. His hair is a mess, sweaty and clumped, and one day Harry wants to make it that himself, wants to get his hands in it like only he can and maybe hold on as Zayn blows him, hold on and keep Zayn there and let Zayn know he’s making Harry so very happy. 

But right now, Harry has other things to do, and he pulls out slowly, then thrusts back in, his fingers still tight enough around Zayn that he hopes they’ll bruise. Zayn’s breath wooshes out, in what Harry thinks is a good way, so he does it again, and again, until Zayn’s breath is so fast Harry might think he was hyperventilating and he can feel his own orgasm building, building so fast and strong he thinks it’s going to overwhelm him, which won’t impress Zayn at all, won’t keep him here. 

He knows Zayn’s been on the edge, could stroke him off. But he thinks he could do better, too, so he lets go of Zayn’s hip to run a hand up his spine. “Think you could come like this?” he purrs, as he thrusts into Zayn again. “Just from me, not touching you?”

He can’t tell if the strangled noise Zayn makes his agreeing or not. “Come on, babe,” he goes on, and drags his nails up Zayn’s neck, “Come for me? Come for your Harry, my beautiful boy?” 

Zayn comes on an inarticulate noise clenching around Harry as his shoulders convulse and his hips sag, so only Harry’s holding him up. Harry’s so close, so fucking close, but he pauses as Zayn shakes, stroking his back in comfort. It’s only then that, “Can I?” he asks. 

“Want you to,” Zayn agrees, and yes. There are the words Harry’s been looking for. Wants Harry. Wants Harry here. He thrusts one, twice more, then he’s coming, and Zayn takes all of it, everything Harry has to give, everything he can give, until Harry’s collapsed on top of him. 

He lies there, for a second, feeling their breaths line up, until he thinks he can move again. Then he pulls out, slowly, and rolls them both over, making a face at the mess on his bed. “Ew.”

“Not what you said five minutes ago,” Zayn mumbles. His just fucked voice is even hotter on this end of it, when Harry’s the one who just did the fucking. As a retort, Harry nudges Zayn with his shoulder; Zayn just sort of flops where he pushed him, which means Harry’s probably the one who’s going to have to get up and get something to clean them off, as little as he ever wants to leave. 

But he does, as quickly as possible, grabbing a shirt he’s pretty sure he doesn’t like and was dirty anyway to wipe as much off his sheets as possible, then, gently as he can, off of Zayn. Zayn watches him do it with a loose, silly smile, his gaze following every motion of Harry’s, so Harry kind of wants to just stand and preen. When he’s done, he gets back into bed, and it’s like always, curling up against Zayn, except now there’s more skin involved and that’s good. He can feel Zayn’s breath evening out as he drifts into sleep, knows he’s heading there himself, so he wraps his arms tighter around Zayn to hold him close. 

He presses a satisfied kiss to the back of Zayn’s neck. He’s more than half-asleep when he murmurs, “Never leave me now, right?”

Zayn’s muscles tighten under his lips, and all at once Zayn’s thrown off the covers and is out of the bed. “What?” he demands. The smile’s gone, his eyebrows are drawn together. “Really, Harry? Really?” 

“Wha—Zayn!” Harry lunges forward, grabs Zayn’s wrist before he can just leave. No. No no no this was not the plan at all why is Zayn leaving he was supposed to never be able to leave. “What did I say, Zayn?”

“You fucked me just so I wouldn’t leave?” Zayn spits, and jerks his hand away out of Harry’s grip. Even in his anger he’s beautiful; he’s forgotten to be self-conscious about his nakedness so he’s blazing like some Apollo come to life, and Harry can’t notice because what’s happening? “Are you really that fucking possessive?” 

“No! I mean, yes,” because he can’t lie to Zayn, but, “No, it wasn’t just—” He tries to scramble forward, to get some sort of hold on Zayn, but Zayn’s backing up, grabbing his clothes as he goes. 

“Fuck you, Harry,” Zayn snaps. He’s mad. He’s actually mad and he’s actually leaving and how did everything go wrong so fast? “Just—fuck you.” 

The door swings shut behind him, and Harry’s left gaping on the empty bed.

\---

He gives Zayn an hour. Well, fifty-five minutes, because he’s impatient and he needs to set this straight, he can’t have Zayn mad at him. So he gives him an hour before he follows Zayn to his room and, because he respects Zayn’s right to be angry, knocks. 

“Go away, Harry,” Zayn yells. 

“Not until you talk to me!” Harry yells back. It’s two in the morning, soon he’ll get yelled at to go away by other people, but hopefully that’ll make Zayn anxious enough he’ll let him in. “You have to talk to me, you can’t be mad—”

The door swings open, and Zayn’s face appears. “Can’t be mad?” he repeats, his voice even. Harry hates when he gets like this, when he closes off so completely even Harry can hardly read him. “Harry, I’ve never been this furious at you before.” 

“Not even—”

“That was for a good cause, I can see that now.” Zayn sighs, but the reminder of that one call Harry made seems to have made him at least not be about to punch Harry. “This wasn’t, Harry.”

“It was! Not as good, obviously, but you were—” Harry runs a hand through his hair. “You were leaving! I had to do something!” 

“God.” Zayn rubs at his collarbone, but his fingers brush against the bruise at his neck and he winces and drops his hand. Harry’s breath catches at the bruise. His mark. His. “Half the reason I’m still so in love with you is because you never used it against me. Never. Until now.”

“It wasn’t that, I—”

“What, was horny? Needed a warm body because it’s been a while since you fucked anyone?” 

“No!” Harry’s sick of getting cut off, so he steps forward too. “No, but I knew it was what you wanted and I had to hold onto you somehow!”

“Well good fucking job.” Zayn’s face is hardening and Harry knows that look even if it’s never been focused on him before. “You gave me what I wanted. Now go away.” 

“No, Zayn—”

“I was always going to be your friend,” Zayn snaps, suddenly. He tilts his chin back, looks right into Harry’s eyes. “I wasn’t going to leave you.”

Harry swallows, reaches out to grab the doorframe. Not to keep it open, but to steady himself. “Wasn’t?”

Another sigh. “Am not. But I need you to go away for a while, Harry. Not forever. I just need to figure out what I need to do from here.” He’s biting at his lip again, his shoulders rolling back like he had the first time Harry watched him eat again, and Harry never wanted to hurt Zayn but it looks like he has, worse than anyone. 

“But you’ll come back?” Harry asks, tentative. “Right?”

“Yeah.” Zayn steps back into his room. “Just give me some space for now, yeah?” He closes the door before Harry can answer. 

So Harry drags his feet back to his room. He strips the sheets off his bed so they don’t smell like Zayn, then undoes that by pulling on an old sweatshirt of Zayn’s that he left in his room so he can feel like Zayn’s holding him as he curls into a ball and shivers his way into sleep. 

\---

He comes awake all at once, just before eleven. There’s something he has to do. He throws on jeans and a hoodie that isn’t Zayn’s, then rushes across campus. He doesn’t have Louis’s phone number, but he knows Louis has a 10:15 class in the Theater building, so he should be coming out of there soon. 

Sure enough, in the flood of people leaving the building, Harry spots Louis’s hair and grabs at him before he goes. 

Louis spins when Harry touches him, then glares when he sees who it is. “What the fuck do you want?” he snaps, then, before Harry can answer, “And what the hell did you do to him? He texted me at eight this morning. I didn’t even know he knew that hour existed.”

Harry shakes his head, but Louis’s still going, even as he steps out of the path into a corner where he can yell less conspicuously. “You didn’t hit him, did you? I knew something was up, but I didn’t think it was that—”

“No!” Harry yelps, for the second time. “No, I didn’t, what the fuck? And just shut up.” 

“Why? You clearly fucked up, and you—”

“Look,” Harry interrupts him. He does not have time for this. Or he guesses he does, but he needs Louis to understand this and then he has to figure out what he’s going to do without Zayn. “I get you don’t like me, especially now. But you need to make sure he eats.” 

That gets Louis to stop glaring in favor of looking confused. “What?”

“This was a stressful situation he couldn’t really control,” Harry says it in a rush, reciting what the therapist had told him and Zayn’s family, “As a response, he might stop eating, or not eating as much, or only pretending to eat. You can’t let him.” 

“What?” Louis says again. His jaw’s dropped a little. 

Zayn will be mad at him for saying this, for bringing this up here where he feels like he’s escaped it, but Harry really doesn’t care. He’s already mad at him. And he made this call before, even though he was terrified Zayn would be so mad he would never be his friend again, and he’ll make it now. Some things are more important. “I’m usually the one watching him, but obviously I can’t now, so you have to. He might lie. Try not to let him. If it looks like it’s getting too bad, call his mom, she’ll know what to do, or me if you think it won’t make things worse. Okay?”

Louis’s closed his mouth, and he nods, firmly. “Okay,” he says. He tilts his head. “I don’t get you.”

Harry shrugs. “’m not that complicated.” 

Then he turns around and walks away. He waits until he’s out of sight of Louis before he breaks into a run, before he runs back to his room and drops back onto his bed, brings his knees up to his chest like his fourteen and crying in a boarding school dorm room again. Except this time there’s no Zayn to comfort him. No Zayn to promise he’ll never leave. 

\---

The second night after Zayn sends Harry away, Harry goes out. Without Zayn, with a bunch of other friends who want him and want to be with him and who he doesn’t really care about if they leave. He gets spectacularly drunk, and ends up hooking up with a red-haired, blue-eyed boy who looks as different from Zayn as anyone possibly can while still being hot. It’s good enough, Harry guesses, but he thinks of Zayn gazing up at him like he’s everything and the way their bodies had moved together and has to bite down on his tongue to keep from moaning out Zayn’s name as he comes. 

It’s not the first time that’s happened, if Harry’s honest with himself, so he tries his best to set it aside. Instead he goes about his life. His Zaynless life. 

When it happens again the next night, after he hooks up with a lovely dark-haired girl with brown eyes and long eyelashes, he forces himself not to think about it. Because there’s nothing he can do. He lost. Zayn’s gone. For now, at least. Harry really, really, really refuses to think about how long it’ll last. He promised he’d be back. 

By one week, though, Harry’s ready to scream. It’s the longest he’s ever gone without speaking to Zayn since they met, since even on the few vacations Harry didn’t spend with the Maliks they called at least once a day. It’s not the longest he’s gone without seeing Zayn, but that’s because he might sometimes wander over to where he knows Zayn’s going to be so he can see him, at least. He tries to make sure Zayn doesn’t know he’s there, which is a level of creepy he’s pretty okay with, because he needs to make sure Zayn’s okay. 

And he is. That’s the worst. He looks okay. He hangs out with Louis and some of his other friends, even some of their mutual friends. He doesn’t look like he’s losing weight, keeps going to class. Keeps smiling, though Harry is sure he doesn’t smile as much as he did when Harry was around. He even goes out, though not much, because Harry isn’t there to make him remember he likes to be social too. 

At two weeks, Harry’s considering drastic measures. He doesn’t know what sort of measures, because he knows what he did was awful and that Zayn’s got a right to be mad at him, but he can’t go on like this. When his dad left, he had his mom; when his mom left he had Zayn, and now Zayn’s left and there’s no one he can talk to really. 

It’s worse, too, then any of the other times Zayn’s been mad—or the other time, Harry guesses—because now he knows too much about Zayn. Knows the way his muscles move beneath his skin when Harry kisses it, knows the needy whimpers he makes when close to coming, knows how he had smiled and moved when Harry had called him beautiful. No one else knows that, Harry thinks, when he happens to catch a glimpse of Zayn talking to a pretty girl with violet hair outside of the art building. She won’t know how important it is to make sure Zayn knows how brilliant he is, to make sure to touch him all over so he’s aware he’s lovely and wonderful and everything important. Harry needs to tell all of the people Zayn ever sleeps with to make sure they do that. Or he could just be the only one Zayn ever sleeps with again, just to be safe. That might be best. And then it would only be fair if Harry only slept with Zayn ever again, because if he’s only ever thinking about Zayn during sex it would make sense for him to just have sex with Zayn. 

Of course, that would be a lot easier if Zayn were speaking to him, or he was allowed to speak to Zayn, Harry thinks, as he drops onto his bed that night. But he’s not going to push that. He won’t. He is mature enough and not that codependent and desperate. He can give Zayn his space and just hope hope hope that Zayn will forgive him. 

When his phone rings, Harry answers it eagerly. Anything to distract him. But then he looks at the caller ID, and everything in him shudders to a halt. 

‘Mom’, it says. Harry stares at it, as the old-school phone sound rings out. 

Slowly, very slowly, he reaches out, presses the button to answer it. “Hi, mom,” he says. His fists clench on his thighs. He can do this. Even if the only way he’s ever gotten through phone calls with his mom is with Zayn’s hand to squeeze. 

“Hi, Harry!” she says. He can hear the smile in her voice. She was always like that, right up until she left him at that school; always laughing, smiling. He had worshipped her for that, how she had held up after his dad left, like Harry was enough for her. “How’s my baby boy?”

“Fine,” he answers shortly. He wonders, vaguely, where she is, because it’s 1 AM here and she doesn’t sound tired. 

“And how are classes? End of the semester’s coming up, do you have summer plans?”

“Classes are good. I’ve got an internship for the summer.”

“Oh, where?”

“In a law office in the city.”

“How prestigious!” This is the worst of it, always. How she’s always caring, always acts like she gives a shit just enough that Harry can almost, almost believe that it’s true, except for how she won’t call again for another six months. He thinks the only way he’d know if she died is if money stopped showing up every month in his bank account. “And Zayn? Does he have something in the city too?”

“Yeah.”

“Doing what?”

“It’s this program that works with inner-city kids, it’s really hard to get into—” Harry cuts himself off. Both because he doesn’t want to think about Zayn, about what might happen if they don’t make up before the year is over and they won’t live together over the summer like they’d planned, and because he can’t take much more of this, of his mother pretending like she’s interested in his life. “Why are you calling, mom?”

“Wanted to know what was up with you!”

“Mom.” 

She giggles. He sits up, pulls his knees to his chest. He knows, before she even speaks, that it’s bad. “I’m getting married, Harry.”

Harry chokes. “Married?”

“Yes. Des and I are getting married this summer! It’s so exciting, he’s such a wonderful person, you’ll love him. And he has children, too, so you’ll have siblings, won’t that be nice? You always wanted a sister.”

“Married,” Harry repeats. Married. Committing. Telling someone else she’ll stay, with someone else’s kids, when she didn’t even show up to his high school graduation, just sent a card with some money and a pressed flower from a lei in it. 

“Married!” she chirps. “Oh, Harry, he’s…” she trails off, dreamy. Harry’s fingernails are cutting into his palms. “I haven’t felt this way about someone since your father.” 

“My father.” 

“Can’t think of anything new to say?” she teases. “Cat got your tongue?”

“No, I just—” he swallows, bites down on his lip, digs his hand into his thigh. “Congratulations, mom.”

“Thanks! I wanted you to know before you got the invitation, of course. I’m calling your grandmother next. She’ll scream,” she whispers conspiratorially, like she used to when they would creep around the house together, pretending to be monsters ready to hunt down his father, who would also scream convincingly when they pounced then let Harry chase him around the room. Like that’s what this is. 

Harry thinks there might be tears in his eyes, but he can’t tell. He just—he needs to get off this phone, before he—he doesn’t know, before he does something. “Well, I’ll let you get to that,” he says. Thinks of how Zayn reacts when things floor him, tries to channel the even, closed tone he gets. “I’m glad you’re happy.”

“Me too! I’ll speak to you later about your role in the wedding, love. Zayn will be coming with you, of course? And a date? Or is he your date? I can’t keep track. Anyway, ciao!” 

She hangs up. The phone drops from Harry’s dead fingers. 

He stares at it for a second, the white against his green bedspread.

Then he moves on instinct, on blind need and desperation and panic. Out of his room, down the stairs, across the campus, feet pounding heart pounding, trying to keep tears out of his eyes and his face somewhat composed. He doesn’t know where he’s going until he’s there, or maybe he does, because he can’t—he can’t do this alone. 

Zayn’s door is unlocked, so he opens it without knocking. Zayn looks up from the bed. He looks like years of comfort, like home and need and something to hold Harry together. “Harry—” he starts, his eyebrows coming together, when Harry freezes in the doorway. 

He tries to get something out. An apology, something, anything so Zayn won’t be mad, so Zayn will stay. But all that comes out is, “My mom’s getting married.” 

Without another word, Zayn opens his arms, and Harry dives into them. 

Zayn still smells like smoke and him, and the fabric of his sweatshirt—actually, Harry’s sweatshirt, he thinks—is soft and welcoming, and his hands are stroking over Harry’s hair as he murmurs nonsense into Harry’s ear, and Harry just wraps his arms around Zayn’s waist and holds on. 

It’s the third time in three weeks that Harry falls asleep as he falls apart, but this time he wakes up and doesn’t feel empty. It takes him a second to realize why, but then he opens his eyes and sees Zayn. He’s asleep too, facing Harry with one of his hands on Harry’s waist and the other tucked between them. He’s just so exquisite, Harry thinks, with the sun hitting his cheekbones and his eyelashes and turning him all gilded. Harry really can’t be held responsible for what he does next, because he’s half-asleep still and his beautiful Zayn’s right there. He leans forward just enough to drop a feather-light kiss on Zayn’s lips. 

It shouldn’t be enough to wake Zayn up, but he must have already been on his way because when Harry pulls back, Zayn’s blinking awake, and his lips are curving into the smile he always got when he saw Harry. 

Harry will do anything, anything, rather than make that smile go away again. Rather than make Zayn go away again. “It wasn’t just to keep you,” he says, quietly so as not to break the morning hush. “It was—”

Zayn shakes his head. “Not now.”

“But…”

Zayn scoots closer, rests his head on Harry’s shoulder. “I didn’t get this, okay? Let me have this first.” 

Harry inhales Zayn’s hair, then runs a hand down Zayn’s back, like a reminder it’s still there. “Okay,” he says, and lets Zayn’s soft, slow breathing lull him back to sleep. 

\---

He knows it’s not going to be as easy the next time he wakes up. Zayn’s already awake this time, and he’s pulled away. Not far away, but he’s sitting up against the backboard, and he has his glasses on and a book open on his lap, but he’s not reading it. Harry’s sure of that, because he takes a little time between when he wakes up and when he sits up to watch, and he doesn’t turn the page once. 

From this close, Harry can see that there are circles under his eyes like he hasn’t been sleeping, which makes Harry probably happier than it should. But it’s nice to know he’s not all right. That Harry not being here has hurt him too. 

Still… Harry sits up, which makes Zayn look over at him and put his book aside. They stare at each other for a second, then Harry speaks. “I didn’t—I wouldn’t have come over. I didn’t want to. I was trying to respect you, I just—”

“I know, Haz. I didn’t—” Zayn reaches up to rub at his collarbone. The bruise Harry had put there is gone, and Harry pushes his hand into the sheets to repress the urge to go over and replace it. “It’s fine, I wouldn’t have wanted you to go through that on your own.” 

“Okay.” Harry nods. It was important that Zayn knows that. And, “Have you been eating?” Zayn rolls his eyes, and, “No.” Harry snaps it, and it’s sharp enough that Zayn draws back in surprise. “No, you don’t get to roll your eyes at that. You’ve been eating, right?”

“Yes, I have.” Harry doesn’t quite know how to interpret Zayn’s expression, something pleased and worried and nervous. “Louis’s been keeping an eye on me. He’s not as subtle as you.”

Harry can’t help the face he makes at Louis’s name. Zayn snorts out a bleak laugh. “Come off it, Harry. He told me you told him to watch me.”

“I had to be sure.” Harry shrugs, then tilts his head, leans forward. “You aren’t mad at me for that? For telling him?”

Zayn lets out a long, slow breath. “No. Not for that. That, I get.” 

This is Harry’s opening. “And the other thing, it wasn’t—I wasn’t using you, I—”

“Was trying to keep me away from Louis.” When Harry blinks at him, surprised, Zayn lets out a laugh that isn’t at all amused. “I know you, Haz, and you aren’t subtle. Or at least, not after the fact. You thought fucking me would keep me from being friends with Louis.” 

“Yes, but—”

“It’s not like I’ve only been your friend so you would fuck me,” Zayn cuts him off, harsh. He leans forward, and his eyes are dark and intense through his glasses. “We’re unhealthy but we’re not that unhealthy, Haz.” 

“I know! I didn’t think—”

“And you can’t just do that. You know what it meant to me, and then realizing you just did it to manipulate me—do you know Louis thought we were in an abusive relationship? And I don’t blame him, with you doing—”

Harry is sick and tired of everyone interrupting him all the time. So he does the only sensible thing, and, in one motion, straddles Zayn to get a better angle and covers Zayn’s hand with his mouth. Zayn immediately twists his hips to get him off, then when that doesn’t work grabs at his arm with his hands, but his leverage is bad and Harry’s got plenty of weight on him, so he manages to get Zayn’s hands trapped on his stomach as well with his other hand. When Zayn stops struggling, just glares up at him, that’s when he starts talking. 

“I fucked you so you wouldn’t leave,” Harry says slowly. This matters. He needs to be sure he gets the right words, here, even if that’s never mattered before with Zayn. “Because you’re the most important thing in the world to me, and I can’t do it without you, I can’t, I’ve been going insane these past few weeks. So yes. I did it because I knew you wanted it and I hoped it would keep us close. And,” he adds, when Zayn licks his hand to get him to let go. He doesn’t. He’s wise to Zayn’s tricks. “And I fucked you because you’re beautiful, and I wanted you. I want you.” 

Zayn goes very, very still, all at once, and his eyes stop burning to widen. He shakes his head beneath Harry’s hand, a little frantically. “I do,” Harry protests. “I always have, Zayn, for real. You’re gorgeous. You’re the hottest person I’ve ever seen.” He can keep going for days, Harry thinks—someday, if Zayn lets him, he will, go over every inch of Zayn and describe why it is the most attractive version of that inch in existence. But right now, he has more urgent things to do. Not more important, just more urgent. “And I think I’d quite like to keep doing that—ouch!” 

He draws his hand back from where Zayn managed to bite it. He always forgets how dirty Zayn fights. “The fuck, Harry?” Zayn spits, propping himself up on one hand he yanks free from Harry. “You can’t—that’s not fair.”

“What isn’t?”

“Wanting to fuck me when I’m in love with you. I can’t—it’s—don’t ask me to do that.” 

“Why not?” 

All at once, Zayn seems to…deflate. Like he gets smaller. “Because I’d probably say yes,” he admits, “And our friendship is already fucked up enough as it is.” 

Harry never wanted to make Zayn feel small. It’s his job to make Zayn feel bigger. “I don’t know what you mean when you say you’re in love me,” he says, instead. “I don’t think I love you.” Zayn opens his mouth, but Harry cuts him off this time. “But I can’t live without you, and I want us to be us again. And I don’t want to have sex with anyone but you, and I think it’s probably a good idea if you don’t have sex with anyone but me because I’ll make you feel better than anyone else, I promise.” There’s nothing else for him to say, so he stops. “Is that enough?” Am I enough, he doesn’t ask, but he knows Zayn gets it. Zayn always gets it. 

When Zayn doesn’t answer, though, he glances up at him. Zayn is smiling softly, and his eyes are shining like Harry is the best person ever. 

“Is it?” Harry asks again, this time with a smile of his own tugging at his lips. 

“But you don’t love me,” Zayn says, which isn’t an answer at all, except for how Harry knows it is. 

“No,” Harry agrees. He doesn’t. He can’t, because people he love leaves, go make new families with other people, so no, he doesn’t love Zayn. “But I will do everything I can to make that up to you.” He moves forward, so his lips are a whisper away from Zayn’s. “Promise.” He kisses Zayn to seal the promise, tries to pour all his not-love and want and need into Zayn so he’ll never ever go away again, so he’ll take Harry as he is and not want anyone else ever. 

Zayn kisses back for a second, then pulls away. “And Louis? And my other friends?”

Harry takes a deep breath. He can do this. “You can have other friends, I mean, you should have other friends, we both should, I know that. I don’t have any right to dictate who your friends are. Other people should see how brilliant you are. You should even be friends with Louis, just,” he falters, glances down at his hands. “Don’t replace me?”

“Oh, Harry.” And Zayn is smiling, brilliant and beautiful, his lovely Zayn. “I promise.”

This time it’s Zayn who kisses him to seal the promise, and to Harry, as he tumbles Zayn backwards onto the bed in a flurry of limbs and laughter, it tastes like forever.

**Author's Note:**

> Liked it? Want to talk about it/anything at all? Come say hi on [ tumblr!](http://ridiculouslittleidiots.tumblr.com/)  
> 


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